"The Isle..."
PG 13
Summary: What "Riverdale" did to "Archie and Jughead" and "Betty and Veronica", I'm doin' to "Gilligan's Isle" ...
Disclaimer: All characters of Gilligan's Isle remain property of that series...Any resemblance of fictional characters to those living or dead is purely coincidental...
Part VIII...
The Professor, Ginger, Mary, Gill(igan), Karen all watched Steve Rutherford and Lovely Crumpt roll about on the sandy ground for a good ten seconds...
Goodness...Dr. Balinkoff, watching screen in his underground office.
"Steve?" Jess, in her grey uniform, watching a bank of monitors in her security office, Steve and Lovely rolling about the ground on #4. Too surprised to note the chicken passing by the camera to monitor #5, pecking at the ground as it moved along. Frowning at another monitor...Oh, boy...
"Dr. Balinkoff? Jess here." she held phone...
"Oh, Steve...Steve!" Lovely hugging and kissing him...
"Oh...Ow!" Steve, feeling injured leg...
"Ohmigod..." Ginger staring. "Hey, guys!"
"Uh...Mrs. Crompt?" the Professor called, gently.
Karen, watching grimly, arms folded.
On the one hand, nice to know Steve really did have someone besides the wife who divorced him and may not be alone when I abandon him to return home...On the other...Kill, kill, kill...She thought. And kill, kill, kill some more...
What can I say? Love's an irrational tidal wave in a passionate statistician like me. In an hour I'm sure to be suicidal thinking about how I've betrayed my husband, then irrational with rage suspecting him.
And that slut Alison...I know it's her.
Anyway, right now? Kill, kill, kill...Still, if I do have to abandon him, it would ease my heart. Which would, yes, probably get suicidal with guilt over hurting him.
What do you mean I don't seem the type? Eyeing us, annoyed.
The raw passion's written all over my face.
"Steven..." grim tone.
"Steve...Oh..." Lovely was calming. "So good to see you again." She pulled away. "How is your lovely wife?"
The others staring as Steve tried to pull himself together, groaning...
"Oh, Steven, have I hurt you? I'm sorry. Let me help you up." Lovely offering an arm to him...Gilligan coming over to assist as well. "Here, you can take my arm, too. Upsi-daisy..." they lifted him to his feet.
"It is just so good to see you...I had heard you were dead in plane crash." Lovely, fondly. As Gilligan passed Steven back his crutch stick.
And figured my worthless, vindictive husband must have had something to do with it...She did not say.
"Great to see you too, Lovely. As per the missus..." Steve sighed. "Things didn't continue as I would have liked."
"But then he met me." Karen cut in. "Hi, Karen Cushman, Steven's significant other and mistress for the past four years." She offered hand.
"Oh...Hello. Lovely Szo...er, Crumpt." Lovely slight sigh, then smile, shaking hand. "It's nice to know Steven has someone. He is best."
"Yeah..." Karen, cool smile. "So, welcome to the Isle. How do you know Steve?"
As in physically? Spiritually? He saved your kid from bears? You like to discuss history and science online as FB friends? Though you're making a rather fervent display for FBers, I know sometimes those group relationships really get intense. Met two lovers and the Leader of my cult that way.
"He was kindest junior manager of Crompt Palace Hotel in Spolt, Slobovia, my old home, when I worked as maid in hotel." Lovely smiled.
"Assistant Manager, actually..." Steve noted.
"Such a kind boss..." Lovely beamed.
"Oh, so you never carried on with him..." Karen nodded.
"No, we never have the fucked." Lovely noted. "Though, to be honest..." sly smile. "But he was much too good boss to cross such lines."
"Well...It was policy and morally wrong." Steve shrugged, struggling with stick crutch to a flat bolder and sitting with sigh of relief.
"And you were married..." Karen pointed out, a bit sternly. Mary staring...Oh...My.
Just like Reverend Lovejoy back home...And Uncle Steve.
Though to be fair Uncle Steve had found out Aunt Theresa was his cousin...
Which, if one considers either Godless Science or the Bible, was probably the cause of cousin...Damien.
I never really bought Daddy's suggestion that a jackal had mated with Auntie to issue forth that snot-nosed, nasty little...
The others eyeing each other...
A bit awkward when you don't know either the people you were initially shipwrecked with nor the castaways you bump into...
Though it does seem this "Karen" feels a claim on that "Steve" guy...Interesting, I guess...Ginger thought.
But right now, seeking out a private place to pee is more to the point...And maybe quizzing these weirdos as to what they might know about the island?
Though given the rags on them, probably they don't know of a good laundromat around here, ruefully eyeing her wrinkled and sea-salt spotted gown.
"Oh, not then." Lovely shook head. "Neither of us...Though it was how I mets Fred, through Steven, sort of."
"Just friends...Ok..." Karen nodded.
"So you worked for Fred Crompt...In Slobovia?" Ginger eyed Steve, intrigued in spite of herself and her urgent need to pee...And desire not to be googled at by strangers wanting to see if movie stars and actors did anything "differently".
Or to see if she was really a dude...
"You work in the leisure industry you go where they send you, much like the military..." Steve shrugged.
"Of course knowing Steve is how I met Crompt...Fred." Lovely, sighing a bit. "He was touring Crompt Palace with Trump to see if they could partner and get Russian mob to use failing hotel/casino as tax write-off and bail both out from disaster. They sees me with Steven one evening and orders Steven to procure them women, starting with me. Steven...Says no...He is not that sort. Fred does...What Fred does. But instead of firing, he threatens...He thinks Steve is just wimp, he can take...He says to me he will beat Steve up to prove his superior German genes, trump says he will then beat Steve more to prove his most superior German genes. Steve knocked Fred down, one punch. Trump runs for security screaming he has bone spurs..." sigh.
"Long and short was I dated Fred to keep him from having Steve arrested by corrupt Splot policia who really enjoy killing Muslim Slobovians and foreigners like Steven who object to killing. Steven saved 200 Slobovian Muslims in hotel once, during third Slobovian civil war, did he say?" Lovely eyed Karen, then the others.
"No, he did not..." Karen frowned.
"Sorry, we didn't know the guy long enough to really get into that..." Gilligan noted, Ginger and Mary nodding.
Oh, yes...Him. Gill(igan) reflected, eyeing Steve carefully. I remember I recorded his testimony over a secure phone line with several others in Splot after we helped NATO rescue those folks, before the International Tribunal conducted the war crimes trial. We never did meet directly but a true hero as those morality boys call it. Still, I was glad to help jail the murdering bastards.
Hey, I don't just kill mindlessly. Everyone I hit, as you'll see, really does deserve to be hit. We're the good guys, sort of.
"Well...I never really understood what was going on until some CIA/International Tribunal fellow requested my testimony over the phone one evening in the hotel after some NATO boys got the people out ..." Steve noted. "I thought they were a religious convention being hounded by the bureaucracy...Until the soldiers started shooting at us and then I thought, oh, for Heavens sake not another civil war, this is the third one...And thinking they weren't shooting at us per se but just bad shots, like Imperial storm troopers, I had everyone hide inside till NATO arrived."
"Wait..." Ginger stared at Lovely. "You married Crompt to save this guy from corrupt cops? The way Ava Gardner gave up Mickey Rooney so Frank wouldn't have the mob kill him?"
"Uh, well...No. I dated Fred so he's would not let corrupt cops kill Steve." Lovely noted. "Afterwards, my family needed to flee civil war...We had some Muslim and Jewish in-laws, sos I needed fast entry to US for family as refugees. Fred needed new trophy wife. Plus he seems to have lots of money and my father watched him on TV and thought he was great businessman. My father is terrible businessman, very poor politician...Thought Hitler a good man, great leader misunderstood, though he is half-Jewish. He arranged marriage, I says yeah, why not." Deep sigh.
"Made bed, lie." Eyeing the Professor who gave her a wan smile.
"Say could you come with me while I find a place to pee. I gotta go somethin' awful." Ginger hissed to the Professor. "I don't really wanna do it here and that jungle doesn't look all that safe."
"Of course..." the Professor nodded.
"Ms. Grant needs to pee, I'm taking her." He announced to her chagrin...And grim eye roll...
Well, that answers that...He thought. Don't want to be unfair or unkind, miss but a dying man needs someone who isn't worried about what everyone is thinking when he wants to talk about real matters not socially acceptable crap or when he messes his pants in public because he can't control his bowels any longer. I'm sure you'll find someone who'll not embarrass you with his awkward interest in esoteric subjects or disturb one of your society parties by dying in his own living room instead of a lonely hospital room.
"Make for the clearing about one hundred feet that way..." Steve pointed. "There's a latrine of sorts I dug with sea shells you're very welcome to use."
I dug...Karen mouthed to Ginger.
"Mind the rats and fleas..." Steve urged.
"Say, maybe we ought to do something about Todd?" Karen turned to Steve. "He should be ok but we don't want leave him back at the shelter in his coma forever."
...
The tall Briton who'd landed at the opposite shore, near the extinct but somehow now active, volcano, stared about as he regarded what appeared to be an abandoned native village...Huts around a center square. Some evidence it had been inhabited, even recently judging by the remains of charcoal in what looked like a fire pit for communal cooking but...Odd...
Can't place the particular tribe by the clothing or tools still left behind and while they look authentic enough...They don't look like items worn by daily continuous use.
Almost, as if...They were on display.
Hmmn...He stood in what seemed to be a village square, in khaki shorts and open khaki shirt, scanning the mountain before him with binoculars...Steam or smoke rising from what must be the old crater at top.
Active all right, in its way...
He tensed, sensing...
"Ko wai koe...Ko wai koe!" a voice called to him. He looked over to see a figure in a hut door. A rather lovely looking figure...Small and slender, with long, silky black hair, in a colorful sarong.
"Who am I?" 009 smiled, eyeing her. "A friend...He hoa. British."
"You...British? You have boat?" the woman asked, keeping inside the hut.
"You speak English." He nodded shrewdly. "Good. Yes, I have a boat...And friends. Where are the people?"
"Haere ratou. Tuku. He kino tenei wahi, e wehi katoa. ^ This is bad place, they go. Afraid." She finished in English, stepping out of the hut carefully.
Interesting accent...The language is basically Maori but... He pondered.
"He aha i mataku ratou? ^ Kaia. Why were they afraid?"
"The fire god is alive again. Angry." She pointed to the volcano's ancient crater from which steam rose.
"Yes, I see." He nodded. "Ko etahi i haere mai na te mea i wehi ratou i te riri o te atua? And the others left because they feared the god's wrath?"
"Yes, feared. They leave me. I was sick. They blame god. Me cursed."
"I doubt that. You seem well now." He noted with smile.
Yes, very well indeed.
"Better now. But can't go. You have boat?" anxious tone.
"I do. I can take you away from here." He nodded. "But first I need your help..." warm smile.
Frown from the girl...
"I no whore." She insisted.
"No, nothing like that. My dear...I'm a gentleman." The man shook head.
And I certainly never pay...He thought.
Now 008... "Honey-trap Sid"? He's lucky 007 and I testified to his usefulness again last month.
Standards slip, what can one say?
"Hey." She interrupted. "How help? I want to go, quick. The god is angry, make me sick again."
"Hardly a god, my dear." The man smiled. "And I will take you away from here. But first I must climb the mountain and see the home of the fire god. Ka tangohia atu koutou e ahau i konei. Engari ko te tuatahi me eke ahau ki te maunga ka kite i te kainga o te atua ahi..."
The girl frowned...Shaking head...Silken hair tossing.
"Bad. We go. We go now!" she urged.
"Now, now. I'll protect you, dear." He insisted. "Ka tiakina koe e au, e tiimata. You have nothing to fear with me here."
She eyed him as he smiled.
"Why go there?" she asked. "I been there. There is only fire god and smoke. You burn."
"It's my Duty." He sighed. "My Queen and country want to know the god better. And I can protect myself...And you, too."
"The Queen?" she asked. "Elizabeth Queen?"
"Yes, indeed...Elizabeth. It's very important to her. Can you help me? Could you guide me to the top?"
"I no go there. Bad. We go." She insisted.
"Just for a short time, to see. You don't have to go all the way, just show me the trail. Then my Queen will be pleased and we can go."
"Then we go?" she asked, considering. "To where?"
"Where did your people go?" he asked.
"Across water, sail." She indicated a boat moving with her hands.
"But what island?"
"They follow moon...Karsu know way." She shook head. "I want go to England. See Queen. You take Nauri?"
"Nauri? That's beautiful. Yes, Nauri." He nodded. "I'll take you to England."
New Zealand should pass well enough...He thought.
God knows I wouldn't want M to catch me with her. Nor my wife.
"Ok. You promise? And I no go all way?"
"I promise, Nauri, just take me to the trail up and we can leave for England at once. My Queen is eager for the results."
"Ok. Tomorrow in morning come here." Nauri nodded.
Oh...I rather thought...He eyed her.
She eyeing him.
Right...No whore.
And should find out what exactly she was ill with. Don't forget poor ole 006.
...